We joined a guided trek through Los Tilos and were astonished by the diversity of its greenery. Our guide Ilonka from Natour-Trekking explained that there are more than 2000 forms of vegetation and 70 plants unique to La Palma. The hills are a tapestry of fig trees, orange trees, palm trees, banana crops, vineyards, pines, laurels and dragon trees, a tree found only on the islands of the middle Atlantic and which can grow to be centuries old.
"Banana’s are boozers," explains Ilonka as we stop at a banana orchard in San Andres y Sauces, another colonial village with cobbled streets and narrow alleys. "One kilo of bananas needs 1000 litres of water." So avocados, which are much less demanding of the island’s water supplies, are slowly replacing banana farming.
For now the island is covered by huge patches of banana land, with the gigantic leaves swaying in the wind. Some of the fields are covered in plastic to prevent the heavy leaves from bruising the bananas, but as a local restaurateur tells us, bananas cultivated in this way are less tasty.
Ahora mismo la isla está cubierta de enormes parches de cultivos de banano, con sus gigantescas hojas meciéndose con el viento. Algunos campos están cubiertos de plástico para evitar que las pesadas hojas lastimen las frutas pero, como nos dijo un restaurador local, las bananas cultivadas así son mucho menos sabrosas.
As I translated this text before thant the previous one, I didn't realize that the story was set in the Canary Islands. With this information, where I wrote "banano/s" it is better to write "platanera/s" and where I wrote "banana/s" it is better to write "plátano/s". Sorry about that!
Por ahora la isla está cubierta de enormes parches de tierras de plátanos, con las hojas gigantes meciéndose en el viento. Algunos de los campos están cubiertos en plástico para evitar que las pesadas hojas golpeen los plátanos, pero como un restaurantero local nos dice, los plátanos que se cultivan de esta manera tienen menos sabor.
Por ahora la isla está cubierta por grandes pedazos de tierra de plátano, con las gigantescas hojas mecéndose por el viento. Algunos de los campos están cubiertos de plástico para evitar las hojas pesadas herir las bananas, pero, como un restaurador local nos dice, los bananos cultivados de esta manera son menos sabrosas.
In my last sentence where I wrote "pueden" it must say "puede". Thanks.